I might of completely blew up at Em today... with her broken arm it has been rather difficult to bathe her. We got a cover for it, but it doesn't work very well. Last night we decided that we would try just washing her down with the shower. Our shower has 2 settings- HOT and COLD. There is no in between! She was mad if it was hot, she was mad if it was cold. Finally I lost it. After that she accepted the fact that it was going to be HOT. Then she loved it and refused to get out!
I have been back and forth about seeing Joy. The down side is, she is 3 hours away. I feel like we are headed in the right direction so I'm going to keep going. Right now I feel like she is re-shaping my whole life. The last time I was a stay at home mom my kids were 3 and 1. Then I pretty much worked for 2 years straight and now they are 4 and 5. They don't like to listen to me. Then again I haven't been very consistent with them because of the craziness of working so much. Now that I am readjusting to life at home I'm working on my kids and keeping my house clean. I've changed the way I parent and it showed immediately! I am more direct with them, I don't cave, I get down eye to eye with them and talk to them, I explain things rationally, I let them make simple decisions. They are starting to listen to me the first time I tell them to do something instead of 4 times. Every night when they go to bed their room is CLEAN. I mean really, how often does that happen? I'd say before like once a month and that would be the day they cleaned their room for the month. I LOVE IT!!!
This week of changes I've found what works with my kids. Staying consistent and following through has been huge. This morning when I got up they had pulled a bunch of blankets out and had a few other things out. They went to play outside and I told them, "No playing outside until the living room is picked up." They came right back in and picked up the mess. Later they played "movie theater" my daughters new favorite thing. She pulls every single chair from all over the house to the living room, makes people movies tickets, does the whole thing. I only had the tell the kids once to pick up the chairs when they were done. Before getting them to clean their room was a nightmare. They wouldn't clean it when there was a few things out, so it because a HUGE mess and was so overwhelming. It was horrible. Now, towards the end of the day just before my husband gets home I tell them to go pick up and I will give them a treat. They promptly go and are done so fast. It is amazing!
Brad was doing the dishes tonight and I told him I felt lazy just standing there doing nothing. His response, "Um, you cleaned the kitchen, the bathroom, pretty much the whole house and you've done the last 10 loads of dishes!" With that I sat down on the couch and watched an episode of Mike and Molly!
My House, oh my very poor house... We've lived here 3 1/2 years now. I am so not a clean freak. I do like things organized though. Thursday when I found out that Joy was going to be coming to my house for a session you can imagine the major cleaning I did. My house was the cleanest it's need in months. Oddly enough that was on of the things that we talked about. 1) Me setting a schedule and sticking to it. I'm doing okay, this week has been crazy, plus I like to do things spur of the moment. Growing up I wasn't allowed to clean. Nope, not at all. I was told that I couldn't because I would mess it up or not do it right. That has carried over into my adulthood. I just don't clean, like ever! Joy told me that I need 1 day a week to be cleaning day, no work, just cleaning. And at the end of each day before I go to bed, I need to tidy things up. It has been amazing how clean my house is staying and it just keeps getting cleaner and cleaner as I go.
I took the kids to the park to get out of the house. I feel semi-caught up on my orders. Some are a few days behind but more or less they are done.
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